Composition

Julissa Mantilla Falcón

Peru
2020 - 2023

Commissioner Julissa Mantilla Falcón was elected by the General Assembly of the OAS during its 49th Regular Period of Sessions, on June 28, 2019, for a four-year term from January 1, 2020 through December 31, 2023. As a lawyer, she specializes in human rights and has a degree from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP), a diploma in Gender from the PUCP, and an LLM in International Human Rights Law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) at the University of London. She worked in the Peruvian Ombudspersons Office and was in charge of gender issues in the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation in Peru. She has served as an international consultant on transitional justice for UN Women. She is a professor at the Law School and the master’s degree in Human Rights at the PUCP and at the Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at the American University’s Washington College of Law. She has lectured internationally and authored several academic publications. She is a citizen of Peru.

Esmeralda Arosemena de Troitiño

Panama
2016 - 2023

Commissioner Esmeralda Arosemena de Troitiño was re-elected by the General Assembly of the OAS during its 49th Regular Period of Sessions, on June 28, 2019, for a further four-year term from January 1, 2020 through December 31, 2023. In her first term as a commissioner (2016-2019), she served as President of the IACHR during 2019. She held office in Panama's judiciary: she was a Justice of the Supreme Court, of which she was vice-president; she also presided the Chamber for Criminal Cases, and was a judge on the High Court on children and adolescent affairs. She participated in the Special Commission that proposed constitutional reforms in Panama on 2011, and on the Commission that elaborated the Code of Constitutional Procedures in 2016. She has a degree in Philosophy, Letters and Education, with a specialization in Pedagogy, as well as a degree in Law and Political Science. Her post-graduate studies are in gender, with a specialization in family and childhood, as well as constitutional affairs. She is an academic and a professor at the University of Panama, the Superior Judicial Institute and Panama's Judicial Authority. She collaborates with the Public Prosecutor's Office School with regards to the new criminal system and in the subject of juvenile criminal justice. She is a consultant on childhood, adolescence, women and family for international organizations. She was also an ad honorem consultant in the elaboration, debates and approval of important legislation on these matters for Panama's legislative authority. She is a citizen of Panama.

Margarette May Macaulay

Jamaica
2016 - 2023

Commissioner Margarette May Macaulay was re-elected by the General Assembly of the OAS during its 49th Regular Period of Sessions, on June 28, 2019, for a further four-year term from January 1, 2020 through December 31, 2023. She had previously been elected by the General Assembly of the OAS for a first term as a commissioner that also ran for four years, January 2016-December 2019. President Macaulay holds a bachelor of laws degree from the University of London and is currently an attorney in private practice. She serves as Mediator in the Supreme Court of Jamaica and as Associate Arbitrator, as well as serving as Notary Public. She served as a Judge of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights from 2007 to 2012, contributing to the formulation of the Court’s Rules of Procedure. She is an honored member of the Gender Justice Legacy Wall of notable women’s rights advocates who have brought about important changes, which was launched in December 2017 at the United Nations in New York, during the Assembly of Ministers. She took part in the reform and drafting of laws in Jamaica and is well known as a strong proponent of and authority on women’s rights. She is a citizen of Jamaica.

Joel Hernández García

Mexico
2018 - 2023

Commissioner Joel Hernández García was re-elected in the 51st Regular Period of Sessions of the OAS General Assembly, on November 12, 2021, for four years, from January 1, 2022, to December 31, 2025. His first term as Commissioner was elected on June 21, 2017, by the General Assembly of the OAS, for a period of four years that began on January 1, 2018, and ends on December 31, 2021. He holds a law degree from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma of Mexico and a master's degree in international law from the New York University School of Law. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute and was a member of the Inter-American Juridical Committee during 2015-2018.

He is President of the Mexican branch of the International Law Association. In the foreign service of Mexico, he rose to the rank of ambassador and served in several positions. From 2011 to 2013, he served as Permanent Representative of Mexico to the OAS. In that capacity, he chaired the working group to strengthen the IAHRS. He has been a guest professor in the fields of international law and international organizations in various academic institutions. He is a citizen of Mexico.

Commissioner Joel Hernández García submitted his resignation from the IACHR on August 3, 2023

Antonia Urrejola Noguera

Chile
2018 - 2021

Commissioner Antonia Urrejola Noguera was elected by the General Assembly of the OAS on June 21, 2017, for a four-year term from January 1, 2018 through December 31, 2021. She graduated as a lawyer from the University of Chile and has a postgraduate diploma in Human Rights and Transitional Justice. She worked as a human rights advisor for the Chilean Presidency, mainly drafting and processing bills about institutions that deal with human rights, children, and sexual diversity. Following the return of democracy in Chile, she worked in the Special Commission for Indigenous Peoples, and later at the Ministry of National Assets and the Ministry of Planning and Cooperation, where she focused on the rights of indigenous peoples. She served as an advisor to the Ministry of the Interior, particularly concerning its Human Rights Program and matters of memory, truth, and justice. She was involved in drafting and processing various bills on national institutions that dealt with human rights, political detention, and torture, among other issues. She has also worked as a consultant for international organizations including the UNDP, the ILO, FLACSO, the JSCA, and the IDB on matters concerning ILO Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples and the Inter-American Human Rights System, among other topics. She was a principal advisor to the former Secretary General of the OAS between 2006 and 2011. She has been a guest professor at several universities and other institutions, on the subject of the Inter-American Human Rights System. She is a citizen of Chile.

Flávia Piovesan

Brazil
2018 - 2021

Commissioner Flávia Piovesan was elected on June 21, 2017, by the General Assembly of the OAS, for a period of four years which began on January 1, 2018, and ends on December 31, 2021. She is a professor of Constitutional Law and Humans Rights at the Catholic University of São Paulo since 1991. She is also a PhD professor at the University of Buenos Aires, and a professor at the Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law of the American University, in the United States. She conducted postdoctoral research in Harvard Law School, Oxford University and Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, where she studied the regional human right protection systems. She has been a professor of human rights in the post-graduate programs of the Catholic University of Paraná and the Pablo de Olavide University in Seville, Spain. Commissioner Piovesan worked as Special Secretary of Human Rights in Brazil and chaired the National Commission for the Eradication of Slave Labour. She is the author of numerous academic publications and has worked as a consultant for international organizations. She also has given hundreds of lectures and made presentations at universities in several of countries. She is a citizen of Brazil.

Luis Ernesto Vargas Silva

Colombia
2017 - 2019

Commissioner Luis Ernesto Vargas Silva was elected in May 2017 by the OAS General Assembly after the vacancy created by the resignation of Commissioner Enrique Gil Botero on March 9, 2017. His term ended on December 31, 2019. He is a Doctor of Law and Social Sciences from Colombia’s Universidad Libre, with a speciality in family law from that same institution, and has a doctorate in private law and personal and family law from the Universidad de Zaragoza. He was a magistrate of the Constitutional Court of Colombia, of which he chaired. He also presided the Special Monitoring Chamber for 8 years, which was created by the Constitutional Court to execute the structural sentence of protection of the rights of the displaced population due to the internal armed conflict. He is a university professor and author of essays, lectures and books on procedural and constitutional law. He is a citizen of Colombia.

Francisco José Eguiguren Praeli

Peru
2016 - 2019

Commissioner Francisco José Eguiguren Praeli was elected Commissioner on June 16, 2015, by the OAS General Assembly for a four-year term that ran from January 1, 2016, through December 31, 2019. He has a law degree from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, with a master's degree in Constitutional Law and a PhD in Humanities. He was Ambassador of Peru to the Kingdom of Spain from 2012 to 2014 and Minister of Justice. He is currently a legal consultant and adviser at both the national and international level, specializing in issues related to Constitutional Law, Administrative Law, and Human Rights. He is a citizen of Peru.

James L. Cavallaro

United States
2014 - 2017

Commissioner James L. Cavallaro is a citizen of the United States. He was elected during the 43rd regular session of the OAS General Assembly in June 2013 for the prescribed four-year term, which began on January 1, 2014. In the 154th Period of Sessions in March 2015, he was elected First Vice-Chair. He became President on January 1, 2016, after former Commissioner Rose Marie Belle Antoine –who was the President- finished on December 31, 2015, the period for which she had been elected. James L. Cavallaro is a lawyer with an undergraduate degree from Harvard College, as well as a law degree from the University of California at Berkeley and a PhD in Human Rights and Development of the Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Sevilla, Spain. Currently, James L. Cavallaro is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and Founding Director of both the International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic at Stanford and the Stanford Human Rights Center. Previously, he was a Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and Executive Director of the Human Rights Program at Harvard. He founded the Brazil-based Global Justice Center and served as Director of the Brazil offices of Human Rights Watch and the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL). He is the author of dozens of articles, books, and other publications on human rights and the inter-American human rights system.

Paulo Vannuchi

Brazil
2014 - 2017

Commissioner Paulo Vannuchi is a citizen of Brazil. He was elected during the 43rd regular session of the OAS General Assembly in June 2013 for the prescribed four-year term, which began on January 1, 2014. Paulo Vannuchi is a political and union consultant. During his youth, he was imprisoned for five years due to his activities in the resistance to the military dictatorship in Brazil. He studied journalism at the University of São Paulo, where he received a Master’s Degree in Political Science. He was a member of the team that conducted the investigation “Brazil: Never Again”; was a cofounder of the Cajamar Institute; and was a political adviser to the national office of the Workers Party of Brazil. He also served as Executive Secretary of the National Coordinating Committee of the Lula for President Campaign in 1994 and 2002. He held various posts, including that of President, at the Citizenship Institute, coordinated by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. He served as Human Rights Minister in the Lula Government, between December 21, 2005 and December 31, 2010, as well as President of the Human Rights Defense Council; the National Commission for the Eradication of Slave Labor; and of the National Committee to Prevent and Combat Torture in Brazil. He is the author of articles and publications on political science and human rights, among other topics.

José de Jesús Orozco Henríquez

Mexico
2010 - 2017

Commissioner José de Jesús Orozco Henríquez is a citizen of Mexico. He was elected during the 39th regular period of sessions of the OAS General Assembly in June 2009 for the standard four-year term, which began on January 1, 2010. On June 6, 2013, the General Assembly reelected him for a second term, which will begin on January 1, 2014 and end on December 31, 2017. He was elected President of the Commission during the 144th Period of Sessions, in March 2012, and reelected during the 147th Period of Sessions, in March 2013. He is a researcher in constitutional law, human rights, the judiciary, and comparative law, among other areas, at the Legal Research Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Previously, he served for 16 years as a Magistrate on Mexico's highest electoral courts, first in the Central Chamber of the Federal Electoral Court and then in the Higher Chamber of the Electoral Court of the Judiciary. He earned a Doctor of Law degree with honors from UNAM, and a Master of Comparative Law from the University of California, Los Angeles, as well as Doctor Honoris Causa for San Martín de Porres University in Peru, and for the Autonomous University of Coahuila, Mexico. He is the author or co-author of 8 books and the coordinator or editor of another 15, and he has written more than 100 articles for academic publications.

Enrique Gil Botero

Colombia
2016 - 2017

Commissioner Enrique Gil Botero is a citizen of Colombia. He was elected on June 16, 2015, by the OAS General Assembly, for a 4-year mandate that started on January 1, 2016 and was scheduled to end December 31, 2019. On March 9, 2017, he presented his letter of resignation to the IACHR , after his designation as Secretary of Justice in his country. Enrique Gil Botero has a degree in Law and Political Science from Antioquia University. He was Magistrate of the Colombian State Council, a trial lawyer before the Chamber for Administrative Litigation from 1984 to 2006, a founding member of the Institute for Civil and State Responsibility of Antioquia, and President of the Council of State from April 2008 to February 2009. He received the José Ignacio de Márquez gold medal as the best judge of the Court of Administrative Law in Colombia, 2009. He is professor of Liability Extra-Contractual of the state at several universities in Colombia and lectures nationally and internationally. Furthermore, he has been judge of important rulings related on the protection, defense and redress for redress for violations on human rights. He is author of several works on tort law, constitutional law and a treaty of Liability Extra contractual of the State, with translation in French, as well as on articles in magazines and publications on the subject of human rights and state responsibility.

Rosa María Ortiz

Paraguay
2012 - 2015

Commissioner Rosa María Ortiz is a citizen of Paraguay. She was elected at the 41st OAS General Assembly in June 2011 for the standard four-year term, which began on January 1, 2012. She graduated in social communications media and is an expert in children’s human rights. She has been Vice-President of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and adviser on human rights and cultural diversity for the Paraguayan Presidency’s National Secretariat of Culture. She is founder and member of several human rights organizations, including Decidamos, Global, Tekoha, Callescuela and Workshop on Communication and Popular Education. In 2003 she was recognized with the award Paraguayan Women of the Paraguayan Presidency’s Women’s Secretariat, and in 2010 she received the award Peter Benenson for the Defense of Human Rights from the Paraguay Section of Amnesty International. During Alfredo Stroessner’s dictatorship, she worked through ecumenical organizations in favor of the political prisoners of her country. Commissioner Ortiz has offered numerous conferences, workshops and has written articles on the rights of children.

Rose-Marie Belle Antoine

Trinidad and Tobago
2012 - 2015

Commissioner Rose-Marie Belle Antoine has dual citizenship of Saint Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago. She was elected at the 41st OAS General Assembly in June 2011 for the standard four-year term, which began on January 1, 2012. She was elected President of the Commission during the 154th Period of Sessions, in March 2015. She had also been First Vice-President, from March 2014 to March 2015. She is a lawyer, Professor and Dean of the University of the West Indies, specializing in human rights, financial law, comparative law, administrative law, public service law, discrimination law and labor law. She has served as senior legal advisor to the governments of the Commonwealth Caribbean and to governments outside of the region, such as the UK, Venezuela, USA and Canada, as well as to international and regional organizations. She has written books and articles and drafted laws on a wide range of topics, including discrimination, juvenile justice, women’s rights, sexual harassment, trafficking in persons. She is an Oxford Commonwealth Scholar and a Cambridge Pegasus Scholar, holding a doctorate from Oxford University, an LL.M. from Cambridge and an LL.B. from the University of the West Indies.

Tracy Robinson

Jamaica
2012 - 2015

Commissioner Tracy Robinson is a citizen of Jamaica. She was elected at the 41st OAS General Assembly in June 2011 for the standard four-year term, which began on January 1, 2012. She was elected Chair of the Commission during the 150th Period of Sessions, post that she had from March 2014 to March 2015. She is a lawyer and teaches Gender and the Law, Constitutional Law and Commonwealth Caribbean Human Rights, among other law subjects, at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica. She has been a consultant for international agencies such as the United Nations Fund for Women and UNICEF, and she has advised Caribbean governments on topics related to legislation on gender and children rights, among others. Commissioner Robinson has been editor of the Caribbean Law Bulletin and she has written and published reports on a range of topics, including gender, the rights of LGTBI persons, sexual harassment, sexual rights, sex work and the law, and the rights of the child. She has a Bachelor of Law from University of the West Indies and an LLM from the University of Yale, as well as a Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL) from Oxford University.

Felipe González

Chile
2008 - 2015

Commissioner Felipe González is a citizen of Chile. He was elected during the 37th regular period of sessions of the OAS General Assembly in 2007 for the standard four-year term, which began on January 1, 2008. He was reelected in 2011 for a second term, which started January 1, 2012. He was the IACHR President from March 2010 to March 2011. In the 154th Period of Sessions in March 2015, he was elected Second Vice-President. Commissioner González is Professor of International Human Rights Law and Constitutional Law at Chile’s Diego Portales University. He founded and directed that university’s Human Rights Center, where from 2002 to 2006 he managed the preparation and publication of an Annual Report on Human Rights in Chile. He also founded and coordinated a Latin American Network of Legal Human Rights Clinics. He is S.J.D. from the Carlos III University of Madrid, and he holds a Master of Law degree from American University and a Master of Advanced Human Rights Studies from Carlos III University. He is a Professor at the Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at American University and a Visiting Professor at Carlos III University. Previously he has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Lund University, the University of Deusto, and the University of Alcalá de Henares. He also worked for the International Human Rights Law Group (now Global Rights), first in Washington, D.C., and then in Santiago, Chile.

Dinah Shelton

United States
2010 - 2013

Commissioner Dinah Shelton is a citizen of the United States. She was elected during the 39th regular period of sessions of the OAS General Assembly in June 2009 for the standard four-year term, which began on January 1, 2010. Commissioner Shelton is the Manatt/Ahn Professor of International Law at the George Washington University Law School. Previously, she was Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame Law School. She has also been a Visiting Professor at various universities in the United States and France. Commissioner Shelton also directed the Office of Staff Attorneys at the United States Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit and was Director of Studies at the International Institute of Human Rights. She studied law at the University of California, Berkeley, and at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. She has been an international law consultant for the World Health Organization, the United Nations Environment Programme, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and the UN Institute for Training and Research, among others. She has written, co-written, or edited 19 books and authored dozens of book chapters and articles on human rights and international law.

Rodrigo Escobar Gil

Colombia
2010 - 2013

Commissioner Rodrigo Escobar Gil is a citizen of Colombia. He was elected during the 39th regular period of sessions of the OAS General Assembly in June 2009 for the standard four-year term, which began on January 1, 2010. He was a Justice of the Constitutional Court of Colombia in the 2001-2009 period and was its President from February 2007 to February 2008. He was General Director of the Rotating Fund of the Ministry of Justice, as well as a consultant attorney and legal representative for various private companies and public entities for 16 years. He has also been Professor of Public Law at the Pontifical Javeriana University and Sergio Arboleda University, among other universities in Colombia. He serves on the Sergio Arboleda University School of Law's Human Rights Committee and the organizing committee for the university's Institute of Human Rights. He studied law at Javeriana University in Bogotá and earned his doctorate at Complutense University in Madrid. He has written three books and dozens of academic articles, and has given seminars and conferences on human rights and other topics.

María Silvia Guillén

El Salvador
2010 - 2011

Commissioner María Silvia Guillén was elected at the December 3, 2009, regular session of the Permanent Council, in accordance with Article 9 of the IACHR Rules of Procedure, to fill out the term of Commissioner Florentín Meléndez, who resigned effective December 31, 2009. María Silvia Guillén is Executive Director of the Foundation for Studies on the Application of the Law in El Salvador (FESPAD) and a Deputy Judge of the Central American Court of Justice. She is also a member of the El Salvador Working Commission on Human Rights and Historical Memory, as well as the Salvadoran Coalition for the International Criminal Court. She has been a member of the El Salvador Supreme Court of Justice's Commission of Inquiry into Irregular Diplomas, the Court of Appeals for the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic, and the Special Commission for a comprehensive assessment of the Attorney General's Office. She has been a Professor of Law at the university level and teaches in FESPAD's Legal Update and Training Project. She has been a consultant and researcher for various organizations, including the United Nations, the Arias Foundation, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, and FIAN International. She graduated with a law degree from the University of El Salvador.

Luz Patricia Mejía

Venezuela
2008 - 2011

Commissioner Luz Patricia Mejía was elected during the 37th regular period of sessions of the OAS General Assembly in June 2007 for the standard four-year term, which began on January 1, 2008. She was First Vice-Chair of the IACHR in 2008 and Chair in 2009. Luz Patricia Mejía is an attorney who graduated from the School of Juridical and Political Science at the Central University of Venezuela, where she studied Administrative Law. She was Director of Legal Counsel in Venezuela’s Public Ministry and previously worked in that country’s Public Defender’s Office, as Director of Legal Resources and later Director General of Legal Services. She was also in charge of carrying out the Defense Program as part of Venezuela’s Education-Action in Human Rights Program (PROVEA), and worked as an attorney with the Women’s Association for Reciprocal Assistance (AMBAR) and the Organization for Citizen Action against AIDS (ACCSI). She co-authored the Law for the Protection of Victims, Witnesses, and Others Involved in Judicial Procedures, as well as the Organic Law of the Public Defender’s Office and the Organic Law of Citizen Power. She has published research and specialized articles, and has lectured in courses and seminars.

Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro

Brazil
2004 - 2011

Commissioner Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro was elected in the OAS General Assembly held in June 2003 and began serving on the IACHR on January 1, 2004. He was reelected during the 37th regular period of sessions of the OAS General Assembly in June 2007 for the standard four-year term, which began on January 1, 2008. Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro is Adjunct Professor of International Relations at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies. He was United Nations Special Rapporteur for Myanmar and for Burundi, and was appointed by the UN Secretary-General as an independent expert to prepare the Study on Violence against Children, presented in 2006. He also served as Vice-Chair of the Humanitarian International Verification Commission in Bern, Switzerland, and participated in human rights observation missions in Argentina, Chile, Haiti, Peru, Paraguay, Togo, and East Timor, among other countries. He has taught at a number of universities, including the University of São Paulo in Brazil; Oxford in Great Britain; Notre Dame and Columbia in the United States; and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, France. He has published hundreds of essays, articles, and books on human rights.

Paolo G. Carozza

United States
2006 - 2009

Paolo Carozza, a citizen of the United States, was a Commissioner of the IACHR from January 1, 2006, to December 31, 2009. He was Chair of the IACHR in 2008 and First Vice-Chair in 2007. He served as Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples from March 1, 2006, to March 4, 2008. In that capacity, he carried out a visit to Paraguay in September 2007, visiting the Xákmok Kásek community of the Enxet-Lengua people in the Paraguayan Chaco, which had in process before the IACHR a petition whose admissibility had been approved in 2003. Paolo Carozza was the Commission's delegate in the application filed with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on July 3, 2009. During the same visit to Paraguay, Paolo Carozza visited the Yakye Axa community of the Enxet-Lengua people in order to supervise compliance with the judgment issued by the Court on June 17, 2005. During his mandate as Rapporteur, Paolo Carozza called on States to respect the identity, lands, and territories of indigenous peoples. In March 2009, the Commission decided to put him in charge of the Unit for Human Rights Defenders. Paolo Carozza is an attorney who graduated from Harvard Law School, where he also was a postgraduate fellow in Public International Law. Prior to that, he attended Cambridge University on a fellowship. He is currently Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame, where he has taught numerous courses on human rights, international law, comparative law, and philosophy of law. He also teaches courses on European human rights law at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, and is a Visiting Professor at Harvard University. He has taught master’s seminars at the European Inter-University Institute for Human Rights and Democratisation in Venice and courses on human rights at the University of Trento in Italy. He has also taught courses on philosophy of law at the University of Milan Faculty of Law, was a visiting researcher and lecturer at the University of Chile, and is the author of numerous specialized publications.

Victor E. Abramovich

Argentina
2006 - 2009

Víctor Abramovich, a citizen of Argentina, was a Commissioner of the IACHR from January 2006 to December 2009. He served as Second Vice-Chair in 2007 and First Vice-Chair in 2009. He was Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples from March 4, 2008, to December 31, 2009, and in that capacity he was a member of the IACHR delegation that carried out a visit to Bolivia in June 2008 to gather information for the report entitled Captive Communities: Situation of the Guaraní Indigenous People and Contemporary Forms of Slavery in the Bolivian Chaco. He also headed the IACHR delegation that conducted a field visit in connection with the provisional measures ordered for the members of the communities that constitute the Community Council of Jiguamiandó and the families of Curbaradó, in Chocó, Colombia. Víctor Abramovich also served as IACHR Rapporteur on the Rights of Women from March 1, 2006, to March 4, 2008. As First Vice-Chair, he participated in the onsite visit the Commission made to Honduras in August 2009 to observe the human rights situation in the context of the coup d'état of June 28, 2009, a visit that resulted in the publication of the report Honduras: Human Rights and the Coup d'État. Abramovich earned his law degree from the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), and he holds a master’s degree in international law from American University's Washington College of Law, in Washington, D.C. He has also completed numerous specialized courses in human rights in England and Spain. He has been Executive Director of Argentina’s Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), a legal consultant to the Ombudsman’s Office of the city of Buenos Aires, and a consultant to the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights (IIHR), among other positions. He is currently a Professor of Human Rights at the Faculty of Law of UBA and of the National University of Lanus, as well as a Visiting Professor at American University and at Ecuador’s “Simón Bolívar” Andean University, among others. Commissioner Abramovich is the author of several specialized publications, in particular on economic, social, and cultural rights.

Florentín Meléndez

El Salvador
2004 - 2009

Florentin Meléndez was elected Commissioner of the IACHR by the OAS General Assembly in June 2003. He took office as Commissioner on January 1, 2004, for a four-year term. He was re-elected for a second term, but resigned after taking office in July 2009 as Vice President of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of El Salvador. His resignation became effective on December 31, 2009. Florentín Meléndez holds a doctorate in international human rights law, a master's degree in human rights from the Complutense University of Spain and a bachelor's degree in legal sciences from the National University of El Salvador. He teaches courses and seminars on human rights, international law and constitutional law and is a guest lecturer at several universities on the continent. He has worked at the United Nations and in public and private institutions in his country on human rights issues. He has published books, studies and compilations on human rights.

Sir Clare Kamau Roberts

Antigua and Barbuda
2002 - 2009

Clare K. Roberts was elected Commissioner of the IACHR by the OAS General Assembly in June 2001. He took office as Commissioner on January 1, 2002, and was re-elected for a second term, which ended on December 31, 2009. He was Chair of the IACHR in 2005, First Vice-Chair in 2004, and Second Vice-Chair in 2003. Sir Clare K. Roberts held senior positions in his country, including Attorney General and Minister of Justice and Legal Affairs from 1994 to 1997. He has been an international legal consultant to various public and private organizations, and is a Member of the International Bar Association and the Inter-American Bar Association; he is also an Associate Member of the American Bar Association.